December Drabbles
by artloife
Summary: This will be a drabble collection with Christmas/Holiday themes. Something light and fluffy for a fluffy holiday season. I was interested in doing some prompt challenges for RenxKyoko. We'll see how many I can finish during Advent! Enjoy!


Writing challenges for December always feel a little like sweet treats to me. Always tasty, always pleasant. So! I got this idea because my discord server decided to do a secret santa fic exchange for Christmas! Welcome to the series: December Drabbles!

Prompt 1: Character A's best friend rigs the Secret Santa, because they know Character A has a crush on Character B.

...

It wasn't so much that Kyoko was trying to be a Christmas Grinch, as Maria had accused, but rather that Kyoko was _exhausted_ from the amount of LoveMe work she'd had in the past month. And it wasn't so much that she was trying to not make it to their secret gift exchange that afternoon, but rather that it had taken some finagling to make it work so that Kyoko could make it in time.

"I promise Maria-chan, I will be back here, in this locker-room, this afternoon," she reassured the younger girl.

Maria shot her another skeptical look, "What time this afternoon?"

"Right after my last shoot of the day. I should be able to catch a ride, and be able to get here by four. I promise, alright?"

Maria acquiesced shortly thereafter with a look of mild disgruntlement, as if it pained her to release Kyoko from her clutches. Kyoko was thankful that she was able to agree, and she shuddered to think what revenge the younger girl would have planned if she'd not been able to beg a ride from Yashiro-san and Tsuruga-san. They then said their goodbyes so Maria could go torment some of LME employees, and Kyoko could get into work on time.

Begging rides certainly weren't her preferred form of transportation, but it was the only way Kyoko knew she could guarantee actually being able to get there in enough time. Maria had just recently learned about Advent and gift exchanges, and Kyoko had thought this would be a cute idea when Maria had first brought it up. Of course, that'd been before a month of nonstop work that left Kyoko dead asleep every night.

But, the plan was to exchange a gift every Sunday until Dec. 24th, when they would do their annual Happy Grateful Party. The original plan had been to do this just between Maria and Kyoko, and it still warmed Kyoko's heart that Maria had come to her first with the idea. Kyoko had a lingering suspicion it was because it was something she wanted to try with her dad, but nonetheless, the original plan changed once Sawara-san had gotten wind of it. When he had heard them discussing the logistics, he'd thought it'd be something nice the LoveMe Section could do amongst themselves, and had set up a little gift basket in their locker-room. But then, Yashiro-san had stumbled upon them talking about it one evening a couple weeks ago, and he'd included himself and Tsuruga-san.

Kyoko had demanded that, if they were to include themselves, they would stick to the agreed upon budget for the secret gift exchange, while Maria had squealed in glee at having Ren join. Much to Kyoko's chagrin, Yashiro-san had agreed easily, and so had Tsuruga-san. It didn't make her any less suspicious about them potentially going over-budget, so to soothe her own nerves about it, she'd come up with a plan.

She'd scheduled precisely one day in-between all her work madness, to use her secret gift budget to simply buy ingredients for handmade chocolates and whip up a batch of them. With the exception of maybe Tsuruga-san and Moko-san, anyone would like what she made, and she would (technically) be sticking to the budget. Kyoko smothered a self-satisfied grin as she peeked into her cooler-bag that held them while on a break from her shooting.

"Still perfect," she whispered to herself, pleased as punch.

But that was the last time she could devote any thought to it, before it was back to non-stop work for the next four hours. As soon as shooting finished, she hightailed it to wardrobe, and then back to the curb outside of the building where Yashiro-san had texted her to meet them. She waved as she noticed their car, and slid in next to Tsuruga-san in the back.

"Good afternoon, Mogami-san," he smiled over at her.

"Good afternoon! Thank you so much for this! I was so worried I wouldn't be able to make it, and Maria-chan this morning looked like she might actually try to physically drag me to it, and you know, that's a little-"

"Breathe Mogami-san. We're more than happy to help," Ren replied, trying to hide his amusement at her huffy, pink cheeks.

"It's not any trouble at all Kyoko-chan!" added Yashiro-san from the front, while also smoothly merging into traffic.

"Still, I appreciate that you two went to all this trouble."

"Well, it was us two that joined this little exchange, when you hadn't originally planned for that, so really, it was the least we could do," Ren said, shooting an arch look Yashiro's way, who not-so-innocently cleared his throat and abruptly changed the subject to ask Kyoko about her recent work.

Ren dropped the subject as Yashiro ever-so-sneakily didn't let the conversation fall back to why they'd even added themselves to the exchange in the first place. He'd known his manager for too long to not realize when Yashiro was trying to pull one over on him. Ren hoped it was mild mischief in any case, Kyoko didn't need any added stress right now.

Ren held out hope that there'd be no mistletoe or other such nonsense in the works. Distractions like that were precisely not what Kyoko needed. In fact, Ren had picked out a canister of calming stress relief tea for his gift, knowing the chance it might fall into Kyoko's hands. It'd be good for anyone of course, but it may also have...decorative holiday fairies holding snowflakes embossed on the lid.

Ren didn't think much else about it, even when Yashiro said for everyone to close their eyes, and he'd plop a gift into their hands. At the time, Kotonami-san and Amamiya-san didn't think twice about it either. Kyoko and Maria were just excited to get on with it.

It didn't even dawn on Ren when he opened his own gift and saw chocolates. He just sighed a little, knowing he'd have to give them away because they would likely be too sweet for him. He also didn't have the foggiest idea why Kyoko let out a delighted squeal as she opened her gift-he was just happy to see her smile, and didn't look too closely at what it was.

He gained his first inkling about Yashiro's mischief-making when Maria peered over at his gift, pouted, and said aloud:

"No fair! You got big sister's nice chocolates! Those will be so good!"

He got his second hint, when Yashiro pointedly said nothing while Kotonami-san and Amamiya-san oohed and aahed over the tidy iced decorations on the chocolate pieces. Ren's eyes narrowed on his manager's face, as he stooped to say something in Kyoko's ear.

Ren glanced around at the other's gifts they'd opened: nice cushioned slippers, a nice planner for the new year, and a bundle of differently patterned mittens. His own canister of tea was nowhere in sight, and as he caught Yashiro's quick look over at him just then, that confirmed it.

Ren didn't know if he was more impressed at Yashiro's smooth handling of said gift exchange with no-one the wiser, or by the amount of stalking Yashiro definitely must have done to know which packages were Kyoko's and Ren's. Ren knew for a fact that Yashiro hadn't been in the room when he'd dropped off his own gift in the basket.

"Well, well, well. I certainly hope you're pleased with yourself," Ren muttered.

"Ren-sama? What'd you say?"

"Nothing at all Maria-chan. What a lovely idea this was, what time's the next one again?"

Maria-chan grinned up at him, "Same time next Sunday! Maybe I'll get big sister's next time!"

"Maybe so!" Ren smiled down at her, with a sneaking suspicion that his manager might just try to rig every single one.

...

Drabble 1 down! Let's see how many more I can do before Christmas.

-artsy


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